Voice type

Learn about this topic in these articles:

role in musical variations

In Renaissance vocal music there were two principal variation techniques: contrapuntal variations following the stanzas of strophic chants; and sets of variations over a single, often quite lengthy, foundation voice in a mass or motet. In instrumental music a quite different sort of variation began to appear,…

singing

…on the principle that the voice has two “tones,” a diapason tone produced when the larynx is in a relatively low position, and a flute tone when the larynx assumes a higher position. These distinctions, however, were largely obliterated when a broader style of singing was introduced by Richard Wagner…